🙃Living With An Ex 🙃

I was 20 turning 21 when I experienced love for the first time. My ex and I clicked so much that before I knew it he was living in my student accommodation with me.

Fast forward three years and we lived in a two bedroom house together. Two bedrooms because his friend flaked on the contract as 20 somethings do and we had to either find a new place to live or take the contract. So we took the contract and things were fine for approximately 2 seconds.

Things started to go downhill for me when I needed help to hang up the curtains in the living room and he literally didn’t have a clue. I remember looking at him and thinking ” Have i really settled for a man that can’t perform basic domestic duties??” COS MY DAD TAUGHT ME HOW TO DO THIS SO WHAT’S YOUR EXCUSE. I think the funniest regularly occurring argument in that relationship was trying to teach him how to crack an egg. It was like rocket science I couldn’t believe it. He’d get so frustrated and fuck it up and waste eggs. I don’t know where i got the patience from.

But anyway we broke up after nearly 3 years and with 4 months left of our tenancy. By the time we’d broken up a few essential parts of our relationship had broken down. I think it had been 2 nearly 3 months since we’d had any kind of sex so when we broke up I was readdddyyy to move on and find a new person. The only problem was dating when you live with your ex is a minefield.

I was having to pretend like i wasn’t going on dates and making up lies about the Jaguar that came to pick me up one time being my Dad’s and that i had 0 clue where the random flower arrangement that got delivered to my door came from.

One of the first things i did was join Tinder and put up my sluttiest pictures because that’s the kind of attention I thought i wanted. But after several dates, 3 with a doctor that i had -3 degree sexual heat with but i kept around because he was a doctor and he was in the process buying a house :((, 1 with an incredibly horny Jamaican guy who couldn’t wait for me to finish my drink before he suggested we go to my place and another one with a boy that reminded me so much of my ex that i had to schedule an impromptu night out with a friend to get the trauma out of my system. I realised that Tinder wasn’t for me because i was not a random hook up girl. Apparently in order for my birth canon to get excited real feelings had to be involved.

( This is how i ended up almost catching feelings for a boy that lived miles away and pining after him for 6months but thats a story for another day)

I remember talking to friends at work and telling them about how i still lived with my ex and they assumed that we still loved each other and were obviously still sleeping together. Lol no, the only action i was getting was Tinder messages from white guys calling me African Queen and Nubian Goddess. So i resigned myself to dating but remained ‘celibate’ ( *SWIPES PLATINUM LOYALTY CARD FROM LOVEHONEY.CO.UK and ANN SUMMERS*) until our tenancy came to an end.

When I dumped my ex i think he knew it was coming because it wasn’t the first time I’d tried to dump him I must’ve made the attempt then gone back on my word 3/4 times in the space of a few months so I’m not sure if he still thought we’d get back together but things got weirrrrd.

The thing with living with an ex is that you don’t feel entirely broken up until you move out. I still cooked for us and expected him to come home and eat with me. So when he didn’t show the first time i lost it. Nearly burned the house down because I got so distracted ranting down the phone to my friends and left the oven on.

He still considered me ‘his'(?) (He was my first) and i remember after we moved out of the house my direct debit for my phone bill came out and I didn’t notice it so i tweeted ”omg some beautiful creature paid my phone bill for me” and he sent me a passive aggressive text about the tweet

Obviously i did what i had to do

The one thing that never happened with my and my ex is that we never ended up back in bed together. I’d spend a lot of time out and slept at friends houses to avoid being in his company by myself. The bedroom we share ended up being mine and he migrated to the guest room. But please if you find yourself in this situation and you want to sleep with your ex. Use protection this is how a lot of my friends have babies with people they can’t stand

( I have to admit for artistic integrity that the first and only person to crack was me. I sexted him after we’d moved out and i got air but nevertheless WE TENK GOD)

We had a discussion about our activities when we weren’t together. Leeds is a small place so we agreed to not to bring anyone home and to let the other person know if they were bringing a date to places were we had mutual friends. This doesn’t happen with everyone though i have a friend whose ex pretended to bring a girl back home to see how she’d react but the sad thing is with them that cemented the break up.

The only awkward situation that happened was when i went clubbing and i was “talking” to this guy that had bought me a bottle of Belvedere in this really nice club so i felt obliged to be nice to him. I was drunk so i was probably a little touchy feely and despite my ex and i having being broken up for at least a month he hadn’t told anyone at his work place (a popular bar in the centre of Leeds) that we’d broken up. So lo and behold when i was in this club being fake nice to this man with all the cash his workmates saw me and felt the need to report my behaviour to him.

He tried to act up but i was over it so i shut it down but it was tense in that house for a minute

We also agreed not to tell our parents until after we moved out. My mum was already against the whole cohabitation thing and my Dad was completely unaware so on my end there wasn’t really much lying involved. His parents were extremely involved in his life so a lot of the lying was for his benefit. I’m not even sure how long he waited to let them know we weren’t together but i just did my part in wishing people happy birthdays and replying to the occasional sporadic text message.

But anyway the point of this post is so that anyone who’s going through a similar situation knows that this is actually quite normal in 2018. Young people are more likely to cohabitate before the deal is sealed and i know a few people that’ve ended up in this situation and care not to admit it. So heres a little advice

SET BOUNDARIES – whose paying what bills, chores, things that you would normally do if you were still together. Is he still okay driving you to work etc

SET MORE BOUNDARIES- who gets the bed? Is sex still on the table. Be open and honest with your communication even if it seems harsh and blunt

ITS OKAY TO LIE TO YOUR LOVED ONES- its honestly no-ones business and you shouldn’t feel forced to let anyone know what’s up. This is even truer in long term relationships because a break up can turn into a break

IT WILL BE WEIRD UNTIL ONE OF YOU MOVES OUT- you wont feel entirely broken up and certain habits and behaviours may be difficult to stop

YOU WILL ARGUE, IT WILL BE UGLY, THERE WILL BE TEARS- give each other space. Go and see those friends you were neglecting because you wanted to spend time with your person instead of staying in and crying at Sex and the City and Tangled *ahem*

YOU MAY LOSE FRIENDS – this one was the most difficult for me. Mutual friends can be shared but i knew that i wanted to find someone new so i had to cut off people that i genuinely cared about because they were his friends before they were mine but, don’t worry you will make new friends

YOU MAY NEVER BE ABLE TO BE FRIENDS AGAIN – living together during the period where you would normally be healing after a break up may make it harder for wounds to heal and not having the space to move on immediately will make you hate each others guts. NO matter how amicably you broke up and that’s completely fine